EPILOGUE

         There were only two kinds of fucking in microgravity that Captain Spez liked: With straps and in a bubble. Unfortunately, for most of her life, the fucking had remained entirely metaphorical. And now, in the artificial gravity of this particular space dock, she was getting fucked here too. And again, not in the fun way.

        “I’m sorry, Ma’am,” the corp MinTech said as he leafed through his papers. His actual, literal, real fucking life papers. He had  fabricated  papers using his company maker, for the pure reason of having something to shuffle, throw in someone’s face, and force people to sign. “But your ship, the  Triple Penetrated Zebra Stripper...”  He looked up at her, frowning.

        “Firstly: Captain. Secondly: Did you not  see  the art!?” Spez flung her arm out, gesturing at the massive window that looked out at the docking arm of  Mom and Pop’s Favorite Discount Spaceport.  The distant, yellowy light of 18 Scorpii shone across every ship that was mounted there: Three gas haulers that were filled with cheap hydrogen skimmed off the surface of 18S’s many gas giants, and the  Triple Penetrated Zebra Stripper. The prow of her tramp freighter had, in a fifteen meter wide circle of pale white paint, an image of a gorgeous anthropomorphic zebra woman who was currently being fucked in her throat, her ass and her pussy by a trio of hunky anthropomorphic rhinos. As a final detail, the zebra woman was wearing a choker that had snapped with the pressure of the cock filling her throat, unfurling to become the nameplate of the ship.

        “...I tried not to, Ma’am,” the MinTech said.

        “Captain. And see, it’s cause she’s airtight ,” Spez hissed at him. “Get it? Air. Tight? It’s a joke .”

        The MinTech frowned, then shuffled his infuriating papers more. “Joke or not, you’ve racked up sixty three obscenity violations across four star systems, Ma’am-”

        Spez thrust both of her hands at one of the Mom and Pop’s Cheerful Chem Vendor stations, which was projecting a pair of holographic futanari who were very cheerfully injecting various chems into their massive, fully detailed girldicks. “Ahhhhh!” She howled. “Ah! Ahhh!”

        The MinTech smiled, shaking his head. “You see, those images? Those are hedonistic, not obscene. Furthermore, Mom and Pop’s Deep Space Exploitation and Extraction arm purchased hedonism permits from the United Nations. Did you purchase hedonism permits from the United Nations, Ma’am?”

        Spez’s eyebrow twitched and she growled out the word ‘captain’ through clenched teeth. The MinTech looked unmoved. Spez scowled. “You’re not going to let my ship go until I pay up...how much again?”

        “Sixteen thousand UN backed bills, Ma’am. Though, if you wish, you could sell your ship into indentured service with Mom and Pop’s Deep Space Exploitation and Extraction! We have a sweepstakes currently going: Five years of slavery makes the next ten years fifty percent shorter, but only-”

        “Did you say slavery?” Spez asked.

        “I didn’t say slavery, Ma’am,” the MinTech said, shaking his head.

        Spez narrowed her eyes. “Ah. I see how it is. I’ve been flying my ship out on the fringes for years and years, but that’s not good enough is it. Why have some of the money from my deals when you can have all the money? Huh? Huh!? Well, no! Fuck you! I’d rather sit here and have this entire station get eaten by a fucking space whale before I pay you one thin dime!”

        “Ma’am-”

        “Captain!” Spez shook her fist in his face. “Captain! Captain! Captain !”

        A blinding white light exploded through the windows. The MinTech yelped and jerked away from it and from Spez – then began to splutter. “Who the hell is shifting so close to the station, they’re going to be fined so-” He stopped, his eyes widening in shock as the massive tear in space/time that had been ripped open snapped shut, and the blinding light vanished. In its place was a structure the same size and the same width as the station. Save that it wasn’t a structure. It wasn’t a structure at all . It looked, for all the world, like something Spez had only seen in the Xtreme Xtinction Museums when she’d been a kid.

        It looked like a whale.

        A whale of spikes and writhing tentacles and millions of glowing, gleaming yellow eyes. Eyes that all transfixed the station at the same time.

        “Ha...ha, uh, ha...do you want to undo the berthing clamps so we can get the fuck away?” Spez hissed.

        “I’ll lose my job if I do that!” The MinTech squeaked. “Do you know how hard I worked to get this life insurance?!”

        He was still arguing about corporate policy, in increasingly frantic tones, by the time the immense bioship of the Claw had closed its tentacles about Mom and Pop’s Favorite Discount Spaceport and drawn it between its gaping maw. He stopped arguing and instead tried to throw Spez at the first wave of the horrors that filled the ship. It hadn’t worked very well, as a long term survival strategy. Spez took some grim pleasure in watching him get dunked in the biopits first – a grim pleasure that shifted to literal pleasure as the tentacles wrapped around her gangly ankles and the writhing, squirming mass of flesh started to rub against her ears. As the tendrils unfolded into her brain, and she heard the deep, bone-echoing voice of the Eye, Spez began to smile, beatifically.

         CAPTAIN SPEZ

        I HAVE BEEN LEARNING A GREAT DEAL ABOUT HUMANITY

        AND I HAVE REALIZED MY MISTAKE

        HOW WOULD YOU LIKE A NEW JOB?

THE END